As I mentioned in my previous study, Dinah is the daughter Leah, the wife of Jacob and eldest daughter of Laban (Genesis 30:21). It doesn’t appear that Dinah was born in Haran, as were the first eleven of her brothers, because she isn’t mentioned with those who left Haran with Jacob, Dinah’s father (Genesis 32:22). Yet, she and at least two other daughters are referred to, as comforting Jacob, when he believed he had lost his son, Joseph, to an attack of a wild animal (Genesis 37:33-35). The fact that Joseph’s age is given to be 17 years (Genesis 37:2), and that Dinah isn’t mentioned with those who left Haran with Jacob, seems to imply she was born in Canaan and is at least 6 years younger than Joseph.[1] Thus, she would have been no more than 11 years old, when the events of Genesis 34 take place.
Ancient customs were much different then, concerning how a marriageable age is viewed in our modern culture. The Bible doesn’t place a specific age, as a marriageable age. However, according to ancient Jewish literature, written down after the first century AD:
“But she had in fact not yet seen blood; that is, she had the maturity for it, but the maturity had not yet manifested itself. A girl has reached the period of maidenhood (puberty) when she is twelve years and one day old. When she is twelve and a half years old she has reached the state of bogereth, (v. Glos.), full maturity, womanhood.”[2]
What would have been the acceptable custom for a marriageable age during the time of the patriarchs was probably similar, so although Dinah’s defilement shouldn’t be excused as a custom of that day, the fact that Shechem, through his father Hamor, sought to make a marriage arrangement with Jacob, seems to indicate that Dinah’s age, although too young by modern standards, was of a marriageable age by ancient customs.
Dinah is described in the text as the daughter of Leah, and she went out to see the daughters of the land (Genesis 34:1). The sense is that she wanted to observe them (see – H7200), learn about them and how they lived. The idea expressed seems to be one of naïveté.
At the same time Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite and prince of the country, saw (H7200) her, implying Dinah may have gone out to see (H7200) the daughters of the land more than once, and Shechem was observing her and learning about her. However, on one of those occasions he took her, and lay with her, defiling (H6031) her (Genesis 34:2), which seems to mean he raped her. The Hebrew indicates that there was some violence involved in their sexual act, so Dinah resisted him, at least in the beginning.
Afterward, the text tells us that he loved her, and was emotionally tied to her, and he spoke kindly to her (H5291—damsel, young girl; Genesis 34:3), so if Dinah resisted in the beginning, it seems as though Shechem had won her over, and she was now attracted to him.
Shechem then asked his father to make a marital arrangement for him with Jacob for his daughter, Dinah (Genesis 34:4). However, at this point, the writer of the text used the word yaldah (H3207) to describe Dinah. This word is used only three times in Old Covenant text (Genesis 34:4; Joel 3:3; and Zechariah 8:5). It is used of young girls, of marriageable age,[3] but in Zechariah 8:5 it also describes young girls who play in the street, so 11 years old can’t be too far off the mark in this study. How Jacob came to hear that Dinah was defiled by Shechem isn’t clear in the text, but his sons were working in the field, and he waited until they came to the house, before he reacted to the deed (Genesis 34:5).
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[1] Joseph was born during Jacob’s 14th year in Haran, after he served Laban 14 years, 7 years for each of his wives (Genesis 30:24-26; cp. 29:16-30), and Joseph was six years old, when Jacob left Haran (Genesis 31:41).
[2] See the Babylonian Talmud: Mas. Kethuboth 6a; footnote #17.
[3] See Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Definitions,
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